The short answer on cherry picker hire cost
There is no single number, because four things set it: how high you need to reach, how long you need the machine, whether you supply the operator, and whether the job needs an insulated tower. A day costs far more per day than a three month hire, and the day rate is the smallest part of what you are actually buying.
It is the first question on nearly every call, and the honest answer is that nobody can quote you a real number until they know four things about your job. What we can do is show you exactly what moves the price, so that when you do get a quote you can tell whether it is a good one.
This is written from running our own fleet of insulated towers across Victoria, not from a rate card. Where a figure would be a guess, we have said what drives it instead.
Cherry picker hire cost: the four things that set the price
Every quote you get is built from the same four inputs. Get them clear before you ring anybody and you will get comparable numbers back instead of four answers to four different questions.
1. Working height
How high your hands need to be, not how tall the truck is. A 12.8 metre machine and a 23.5 metre machine are different pieces of equipment with different running costs behind them.
2. How long you need it
A day, a week or a programme of works. This is the single biggest lever on the rate, and it moves further than most people expect.
3. Wet hire or dry hire
Whether you supply a ticketed operator or we do. Wet hire carries a person, their licence and their insurance, so it prices differently.
4. Whether it has to be insulated
A tower rated to work near live conductors carries testing and certification an ordinary boom does not. If your job is inside a No Go Zone, this is not optional.
Ask this on every quote
What is the total, and what is not in it? A day rate on its own tells you very little. Delivery, the operator, fuel, the test certificate and what happens if the machine stops are the parts that decide what you actually pay by the end of the job.
Why a long hire is priced completely differently
Most of what we do is a long hire on a programme of works rather than a day here and there, and the rate reflects that. A one-day hire has to carry the whole cost of getting the machine to you and back for a single day of work. Spread the same trip across three months and it stops being a meaningful part of the number.
If your work is a programme rather than a one-off, say so at the quoting stage. It changes the conversation, and it usually changes the number.
A day rate is easy to compare. What it costs you when the machine stops is the part nobody quotes for.
What sits underneath the rate
A tower that is legal to put on a site is not just a truck with a boom. The certification behind it has to be current, and keeping it current costs money whether the machine is working or parked.
| What | How often | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical test on an insulated unit | Every six months in our workshop | Without a current certificate the machine is not rated for work near live conductors, whatever the plate says |
| Inspection with the covers off | Every three months | Catches the wear that becomes a breakdown on your job rather than in our yard |
| Load test | Annually | Confirms the machine still lifts what the plate says it lifts |
| Major inspection | Per AS 2550.10, tracked from build date | The ten year inspection regime the standard sets out[2] |
The question worth asking
Ask to see the current test certificate before the machine arrives, not after. On our hires it travels in the cab. If a hire company cannot produce one quickly, that tells you something about the rest of the fleet.
Wet hire or dry hire
Dry hire means you take the machine and supply your own operator, who holds the ticket and carries the responsibility that goes with it. Wet hire means we supply the operator as well. Dry hire is the lower rate on paper. Whether it is the lower cost depends entirely on whether you have a ticketed operator standing around anyway.
For a boom-type machine over 11 metres the operator needs a high risk work licence in Victoria[5], so on the taller machines this is not a preference, it is a prerequisite. We cover the decision in full in our piece on wet hire and dry hire.
What a low rate usually leaves out
We are not going to guess at what anybody else charges or what they include, because we do not know. What we can tell you is what a hire has to cover to be worth having, so you know what to check.
A machine that is actually available
A cheap rate on a machine that is booked out the week you need it is not a rate, it is a waiting list.
Current certification
Insulation ratings and load tests expire. A machine with lapsed paperwork is not cheaper, it is unusable on a compliant site.
Somebody to ring
When the machine stops, the number you call and how fast somebody answers is worth more than any discount.
A replacement if it comes to that
If the machine has to go in for repair and there is nothing behind it, your crew is standing around. That is the real cost.
Why cherry picker hire cost is quoted by the week on longer jobs
Short hires get quoted per day because that is the unit the job is measured in. Once a hire runs past a few weeks the daily figure stops being useful, and cherry picker hire cost gets quoted by the week or the month instead.
That is not a pricing trick. A machine committed to one client for a quarter is a machine that is not available to anyone else, and the rate reflects a settled arrangement rather than a series of short bookings. You get the better rate; we get a machine we can plan maintenance around. Both sides know where they stand from the first week.
The practical effect is that the longer the hire, the less the headline daily number tells you. Ask for the figure in the unit that matches your job. If the job is a fortnight, ask for a fortnight. If it is a year, ask what the monthly rate settles at.
What you are paying for between jobs
A hire rate covers a machine that is ready to work, and most of the work that keeps it ready happens when nobody is hiring it.
Every truck runs a fixed maintenance cadence. Every three months it comes in for a full safety inspection with every cover off, and pins, bushes, hoses, legs, tyres and wheel bearings all checked. Every six months it gets an electrical test that confirms it is still safe to be working with and around live power lines. Every twelve months it gets a load test covering the boom, the basket and the legs.
On top of that sits recertification. A new tower is built and certified at the factory to last ten years, and recertification is required every five years after that initial period. A recertification is not a paperwork exercise: the boom comes off, extensions and cylinders come out, welds and pins go through non-destructive crack testing, pins, bushes and hoses are replaced as needed, the machine is repainted, and our engineer signs it off before a new plaque goes on.
None of that appears as a line on your invoice, and you never pay a cent towards it. It is the reason a machine turns up ready rather than needing a week of attention first.
The cost of a machine that stops
The number that actually decides what a hire costs you is rarely on the quote. It is what happens on the morning the machine will not start.
Machines with a lot of moving parts and finicky sensors have issues. New or old, they all do at some point. What separates one hire company from another is the response, and the response is where a cheap rate can quietly become the expensive option.
We start on the phone. Decades of running these machines means a great many faults are identified in a call rather than a visit. A leg that will not set is usually a leg sensor, and that has been narrowed down to a single wire over the phone before now. If it needs hands on it, our mechanic is available the same day, with two diesel mechanics, a full-time auto electrician with more than thirty years’ experience, hydraulics specialists five minutes from the workshop, structural crack-testers and our engineer behind him.
If the truck will not move at all, a replacement tower comes out and yours goes back to the workshop. That is standard, not a favour. It might not be the identical model while yours is away, but there is always a machine ready to go and you are not sitting around waiting on it.
And if a machine fails through wear and tear, we never charge you to run a truck down and back. That is our machine and our maintenance. Compare that against a rate that looks lower until the week your crew stands idle.
Delivery, and why a truck-mounted tower does not have any
A lot of access equipment carries a delivery and pick-up charge at both ends, and on a short hire that can be a meaningful share of the total.
Every tower we hire is a truck. It drives to your site under its own power and sets up on its own legs. There is no float to book, no crane at either end, no transport permit and no waiting on a transport window. When the job finishes it drives away.
That matters most on regional work and on jobs that move. A self-propelled machine that has to be floated between two sites twenty minutes apart costs you a transport movement each way; a truck-mounted tower is driven there by the operator.
It also means the cost of getting the machine to you does not scale with distance the way a float does. We are about ninety minutes from the edge of Melbourne and we hire statewide.
Access costs that show up late
The costs that surprise people are almost never the rate. They are the ones that appear on day one when the machine cannot get where it needs to be.
Two dimensions decide it. The stowed width is what gets the truck through a gate, down a driveway or between buildings. The deployed width, with the jacklegs out, is what it needs at the point of work. On the Redmond Gary TF17M those figures are 2.44 metres stowed and 3.45 metres with the jacklegs down. Measure the tightest point on the route, not the widest.
Ground condition is the other one. Jacklegs concentrate the machine’s weight into four points, so soft ground, a service pit, a septic lid or a recently backfilled trench all need to be identified before the machine arrives rather than after.
Tell whoever quotes you the actual access. A quote given against a description of the site is worth more than a quote given against a machine size.
What a comparable quote looks like
Two quotes are only comparable if they cover the same things. These are the questions that make them line up.
If you are comparing two cherry picker hire quotes, ask both the same questions or the numbers do not mean anything. Check whether the rate is daily, weekly or monthly, because the unit has to match the length of your job. Ask whether delivery and pick-up are included — a truck-mounted tower drives itself, while other equipment is floated at a cost each way. Find out whether it is wet or dry hire, because a wet rate has an operator’s wage inside it and a dry rate does not. Ask the insulation rating, since an uninsulated machine cannot legally do the same work, and when the last electrical test was, because it should be within six months for anything near live lines. Ask what happens if it breaks down — phone triage and a same-day mechanic, or a message bank and a wait — whether there is a replacement machine so your crew keeps working, and who pays for a wear-and-tear failure, which should never be you. And check the minimum term: three months on standard dry hire, with wet hire for anything shorter.
Where cherry picker hire cost genuinely varies
Set aside the things that should be the same on any quote, and cherry picker hire cost really moves on four things: the size of the machine, whether it is insulated, whether an operator comes with it, and how long you need it.
Everything else on the list above is not a price difference. It is a difference in what you are being sold. A rate that excludes breakdown response, or comes on a machine whose electrical test is out of date, is not a cheaper version of the same product.
If two numbers are far apart, the gap is almost always hiding in that second list rather than the first.
Which machine suits which job
Every tower in our fleet is an insulated EWP, so the question is never which one is better. It is which one carries what your job needs. Three figures decide it — working height, outreach and basket capacity — and a fourth, the insulation rating and the conditions it holds in, decides whether the machine can be near the line at all.
Working heights below come off the compliance plates rather than brochures. Where a manufacturer does not publish a figure it is shown as on request rather than estimated, because a made-up spec on a hire page is a safety problem rather than a cosmetic one.
| Machine | Working height | Outreach | Basket | Insulation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GMJ LL22.350 | 23.5 m | 13 m | 350 kg | 66/33/LV on the plate |
| Redmond Gary TF17M | 19 m | 13 m | 325 kg | 132 kV — dry, wet and precipitation |
| Sherrin 18 m | 18 m | 11.1 m | 350 kg | 132 kV, Glove & Barrier build |
| GMJ TT16.300 | 17.5 m | On request | 250 kg | On the plate — ask us for your job |
| Terex Hi-Ranger LT40 | 13.8 m | 9 m | 181 kg | ANSI Category C under A92.2 |
| Versalift SST-37 | 12.8 m | 8.5 m | On request | Fitted as an option — ask first |
| Altec AT30C | On request | On request | On request | On request |
The tallest tower we run, and the one that goes out when nothing shorter will reach — 13 metres of outreach still intact at full height, on a basket that takes two people and what they bring down.
Rated 132 kV dry, wet and in precipitation, which is the rating that matters when the job does not stop because the weather turned. Long outreach for its height.
A Glove & Barrier build on a 350 kg basket. The one to ask about when the work is close-quarters on live gear rather than simply near it.
A mid-height tower that gets into ground the bigger machines cannot. Ask us for the plate figures against your specific job rather than working off a brochure.
Compact and quick to set up, rated ANSI Category C under A92.2. Suits tight residential access where a full-size tower simply will not fit.
Low travel height, which is what gets it under a carpark header or a low branch line. Insulation is fitted as an option, so confirm it before the job is booked.
A compact telescopic tower. We publish figures off the compliance plate rather than the brochure, so ask us and we will send the plate for the unit going to your job.
Every tower above travels to Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton and Gippsland — driven to site under its own power, not floated in on a separate truck.
Which one to take when the forecast is against you
This separates the fleet more than height does, and it is the question people ask last.
An insulation rating holds under stated conditions. Most insulated towers carry a rating for clean, dry conditions and a lower one for wet. The Redmond Gary TF17M is the one certified across dry, wet and precipitation at 132 kV, which is why it is the machine that goes out when rain is forecast and the work cannot wait.
That is not a mark against the others — it is what that particular machine has. For everything else in the fleet the rated conditions are on the plate, and the practical answer is to tell us the job and the forecast and we will tell you which tower is rated for it. We would far rather have that conversation on the phone than have you find out on the day.
Two things do not change with the weather: the six-monthly electrical test that confirms the machine is safe to be working with and around live power lines, and the fact that a replacement tower comes out if yours has to leave you.
Tree work near the line, and work on the line
Nearly everything our towers go out on is one of two jobs, and they pull in different directions.
Tree work near a live service is about reach and what comes down. You are standing off the conductor and working over or around it, so outreach matters more than raw height, and basket capacity matters because limbs come back with you. The GMJ LL22.350 and the Sherrin 18 m both carry 350 kg for exactly that reason.
Work on the line itself is about the insulation rating and the conditions, and often about getting into a tighter spot at a lower height. That is where the Terex Hi-Ranger LT40 earns its place — a light Class 5 chassis with a fibreglass boom that goes where a bigger truck cannot.
We are arborists as well as machine specialists, and the towers are out on our own tree jobs every day. That is why the fleet is shaped the way it is rather than standardised on one model.
Whatever you call it — insulated EWP hire, travel tower hire, cherry picker hire, a bucket truck, a boom lift or a man lift — describe the job and we will match the machine to it.
Insulated EWP hire across Victoria
Every tower is a truck, so it drives to you under its own power and sets up on its own legs. There is no float to book and no crane at either end, which is why distance behaves differently for us than it does for hire companies working off floated plant.
We hire right across Victoria. Beyond the towns above we run into Dandenong and the outer east, right through Gippsland where we are based, and up into the north-east — the Wangaratta and Wodonga side of the state is no trouble at all, we are over that way regularly. If your job is somewhere not listed here it is almost certainly still covered: insulated EWP hire across Victoria.
Tell us the job. We will tell you the tower.
Wet hire or dry hire, anywhere in Victoria, with a replacement machine behind it from the first day.
How to get a quote that is actually comparable
- Measure to your hands
From the ground to the highest point you need to reach, not to the top of the tree or the roofline. - Work out your outreach
How far sideways from where the truck can park. This decides the machine as much as height does. - Know your access
Gate width, ground surface, overhead obstructions, and whether a truck can get where it needs to be. - Say what you are working near
Live conductors change the machine you need. Tell us and we will tell you what is rated for it. - Say how long
A programme of works prices differently from a day. Say which one you have.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to hire a cherry picker?
Is it cheaper per day if I hire for longer?
Does the price include delivery?
What is the difference between wet hire and dry hire on price?
Do I need an insulated machine, and does it cost more?
Can I get a fixed price rather than a rate?
Is it cheaper to hire for three months than to hire three times for a month?
Do you charge for delivery?
What happens to the rate if I need a bigger machine part-way through?
Am I charged while the machine is being serviced?
Who pays if the machine breaks down?
Can I cancel a long hire early?
How much notice do you need?
Does an insulated machine cost more than a standard one?
Read next
Valley Wide Tree Services / 1800 GO TREES
Insulated EWP hire, Victoria
We run and maintain our own fleet of insulated elevating work platforms from a workshop in the Latrobe Valley, and we have been putting machines on Victorian jobs for years. Everything here is written from running them, not from a brochure.
Sources & references
- WorkSafe Victoria — Elevating work platforms: The Victorian regulator’s guidance on selecting, setting up and operating an EWP, including the duties that sit with whoever controls the workplace.
- Standards Australia — AS 2550.10, Cranes, hoists and winches: safe use of elevating work platforms: The standard covering inspection intervals, operator requirements and the periodic major inspection regime that a hire fleet’s service schedule is built on.
- Energy Safe Victoria — Working around powerlines: The No Go Zone framework that decides how any work near overhead powerlines is planned, and the clearances that apply to plant and people.
- Elevating Work Platform Association of Australia: The national industry association for elevating work platforms, and the body behind the Yellow Card operator familiarisation programme.
- WorkSafe Victoria — Safe work practices using elevating work platforms: The regulator’s practical guidance note. States that a boom-type EWP with a boom length over 11 metres requires the operator to hold a high risk work licence.
General information only, current at the time of writing. Requirements change and every site is different. Confirm the rules that apply to your job with the relevant authority and with whoever controls the workplace before work starts.
